Thomas Richard Schubaltz

Thomas Richard Schubaltz
Appearances	Zoids: Guardian Force
Debut	Episode 38
Affiliation	Guylos Empire Guardian Force
Age
Primary Zoids	Dibison
Japanese Name	トーマ・リヒャルト・シュバルツ (Thomas Richard Schwarz)
Voice Actors	Kentarou Itou (Japanese) Ryan Luhning (English)

Thomas Richard Schubaltz (Schwarz in the Japanese version) is a fictional character from Zoids: Guardian Force. He is one of the main characters.

Overview

Thomas (on the right) and Karl grew up in a wealthy household.

Thomas, is a Guardian Force member and sole inventor of the BEEK AI system. He is shown to have grown up in a wealthy home with his older brother, Karl. It can be concluded that Karl was the favorite child in the family, as Thomas stated that it was Karl's responsibility to take on the family’s name. At some point in his life, Thomas went to a technical collage and joined the military, becoming a Lieutenant.

This enhanced his latent skills with machines, something that he would hone heavily in order to compete with his brother, who had excelled in many fields. His reliance on machines proves to be both a virtue and a vice, a virtue insofar as he is able to deal with a large and diverse array of problems, and on more than one occasion provides invaluable support to Van. It is a vice, however, as it tends to make him over-reliant on technology, at the expense of being a well-rounded soldier.

His first appearance is in Episode 4, were he is shown as a member of the Guardian Force. At first, he believes Van is a criminal, but later changes his mind once he finds out Van is part of the Guardian Force. He appears in the next few episodes as a new partner to Van. He is also the first to fight against Raven and the new Geno Saurer, but ended up getting badly beaten.

However, he does not give up, and continues to fight Raven and his new Geno Breaker, mostly losing. After Raven disappears with his Geno Breaker, Thomas and Van go back to stopping terrorists. Later on, he plays a major part in stopping the Death Stinger and Death Saurer, but does not take part in the battle against the Death Saurer. At the end of the series, Thomas is still part of the military, holding the same rank.

Personality

Throughout the series, Thomas is shown as a serious straight to the book type of person. He is shown to be gifted with immense mechanical knowledge, being able to create BEEK, who Thomas claims is better then an organoid. He is also shown to be very loyal to his country and family. One example of this is in Episode 9, were he shows Rudolph great respect. In Episode 7 of Guardian Force, he shows his loyalty to his brother and refuses to fight his rogue Iron Kong, for fear of inflicting harm on him (although he does eventually take out the Zoid with his sizable mechanical knowledge). It is stated that he sneezes when he is nervous, but this is only shown in one episode.

In some episodes Thomas shows a tendency to look down on Van, such as when he refuses to lend Van his binoculars but allows allows Fiona to borrow it in his first debut and in episode 5 when Van was not able to see a Helcat's footprints under the river bed. Thomas mostly acts this way toward Van when Fiona is around in an attempt to impress her and win her over. However, his efforts are in vain, as Van ends up being annoyed by Thomas's antics while Fiona doesn't appear to notice Thomas's actions to win her over.

Appearance

Thomas' concept art for Guardian Force.

Thomas' most obvious feature is his wavy, light-brown/dirty-blonde hair that sticks up from his scalp. In addition, he has bangs that run across his face, with the lock of hair in the middle being the longest. His eyes are slightly oblong, though his iris' copy the same lime-green color of his brother's. Thomas has a longer face than most of the characters, and a red marking below his left eye that resembles the number "7." Thomas also constantly carries a communicator attached over his left ear, to which he can connect BEEK.

His outfit is abstractly constructed, consisting of many pieces altogether. Thomas wears grey and rusty-red armor plating that reaches down from his neck, and cuts off at around his waist, under which is a skin-tight, dull-blue shirt. The sleeves of this shirt can be seen under his pronounced shoulder pads, though his arms are covered up to his elbows by a pair of brown gloves. Thomas' pants are colored two tones of grey, and balloon out a little at his knees, for they bundle up above matching grey boots. When piloting his Dibison he wears customised a helmet (resembling a samurai's) with a visor and cables attached at the back.

Although Thomas is noted to be a Lieutenant in the Guylos military, he wears no patches or insignia to indicate his position. However, he seems to carry around identification (as seen in his debut), in the form of a badge bearing the Guardian Force emblem.

Ability as a Zoid Pilot

Thomas at the controls of the Dibison.

As the pilot of a heavily-armed Dibison, Thomas fights using firepower and brute force, but is also shown to be very strategic and analytical. This tends to be due to his aforementioned reliance on machines, as he simply uses BEEK to maximise the damage his Zoid does. He does have a tendency to be beaten in battle, such as by Irvine and Raven. Nonetheless, he is a very good pilot, as is shown when he pilots a Storm Sworder and takes out Hiltz's Hammer Kaiser with only a bare minimum of evasive techniques.

Also, while heavily cut down in the English dub, Thomas was able to apply his mechanical knowledge and piloting skills to accurately disable his brother's Iron Kong Mk II with his damaged Dibison after most of his electronics are damaged and offline (this was cut due to blood on Thomas' head from the battle).

Relationships

Like all other characters in the series, Thomas has his own unique relationships:

Karl Schubaltz: Thomas seems to be jealous of his brother, as he stated that Karl got all the attention when they were younger. Despite this, Thomas does seem to care for his brother, and was unable to harm him when the two engaged in a fight staged by Rease in Episode 7, most likely afraid he would injure Karl. When the conflict was resolved, Karl told Thomas that he was a good solider. A running gag in the series involves Thomas always forgetting to address Karl by his military rank, instead approaching him in a more brotherly fashion, calling him "big bro."

Fiona: When Thomas first saw Fiona, he fell instantly in love with her. He tried to tell Fiona the way he feels for her, but only succeeded in confessing to Zeke by mistake. His love for her has served somewhat of a gag in the series, as Thomas is always shown trying to compete with Van for Fiona's affection. However, Fiona seems to be rather oblivious to his feelings. Despite this, Thomas never gives up on her, even after being told by Irvine that Fiona is in love with Van. However, upon seeing Fiona's concern for Van as he and Irvine covered the Ultrasaurus's escape from the Death Stinger, Thomas seems to have have come to terms with Fiona's feelings for Van, concerned more about her emotional well being than gaining her affections.

Van sometimes becomes annoyed by Thomas.

Van: When Thomas first met Van, he placed him under arrest, mistaking him for an outlaw. The two would later become friends, fighting by the other's side. Oddly enough, the two often become annoyed with the other. Because of this, Thomas normally goes off saying that "Republican Guardians" are lazy, or goof off to much. Thomas sees Van as a rival for Fiona and does have a tendency to look down on Van, though he seems to be unaware of both these tendencies.

Irvine: The first time Thomas and Irvine met was on the battlefield, with Irvine being the victor. Like Van, Irvine sometimes becomes irritated by Thomas' actions, but nevertheless sees him as a friend of some sort. It also appears Irvine is aware of Thomas feelings for Fiona, and as a result, mocks Thomas from time to time.

Moonbay: Thomas and Moonbay appear friendly toward each other, though they rarely interact. Like Irvine, Moonbay appears to be aware of Thomas feelings for Fiona.

Zeke: Thomas seems to be Zeke's friend, though the two are rarely seen socializing. The only time they interact is in Episode 9, where Zeke developed a one-off joke crush on Thomas after misunderstanding his words.

BEEK: Thomas relies heavily on BEEK for data and other information. Thomas considers BEEK to be the brains of his Zoid. Usually, BEEK readily follows Thomas' orders, performing tasks that are asked of him. Rarely, BEEK refuses to obey Thomas' commands, as shown in episode 22 of Guardian Force, when it became impatient with Thomas' persistence to attack a fake enemy. Thomas brags that his "man-made Organoid" is more intelligent than a real one (e.g. Zeke, Shadow, Specular, or Ambient). It seems that BEEK can actually be smarter than Thomas in some occasions, such as the aforementioned episode when BEEK tried to tell Thomas about an attack from behind instead of the fake enemy in front. Thomas occasionally allows Van to operate his BEEK Mobile AI unit, a special portable gun that doubles as a communication device. However, on some rare occasions, BEEK can make the same mistakes as Thomas.

In Thomas' debut episode, both he and BEEK failed to notice the electromagnetic poles when they first attacked a group of bandits, and failed to come up with a strategy to fight against same bandits with the poles present (such as firing at one and instead ended up hitting Van and Fiona by accident due to the shots being shifted by the poles). However, when both work together, they can produce very effective results.

BEEK is highly similar to R2-D2 from Star Wars, in all but appearance (being an inbuilt computer rather than a mobile robot). The way BEEK speaks is through beeps and whistles, which Thomas is able to understand. Many of the personality traits between Thomas and BEEK are the same as that of R2 and Luke.

Zoids Legacy Database Entry

The following text pertains to information sourced from the game Zoids Legacy. This game used a translation format that differs from the one used by the Zoids Wiki. It also contains grammatical and typographical errors. As such, any quoted content that appears to be incorrect should be cross-referenced with the game before being edited.

"Thoma L. S. Imperial Force Lieut. A Guardian Force member. Thoma is the younger brother of Col. Karl L. Schwarz. He develops AI Beak, which he claims is better than an Organoid. Love at 1st sight with Fiona."

Trivia

• In the childhood flashbacks that Thomas appears in (seen in episode 7 of Guardian Force), his facial marking is not shown in any of the shots. This was either a mistake (as Herman and Raven were both seen with their corresponding markings when they were younger), or an indication that these are permanent tattoos (as they are called in the manga) that are received later.
• Thomas is one of the few pilots of the Empire, aside from Max Rubin of Rottiger team, who pilots a Republican-type Zoid such as the likes of the Dibison. He was awarded it as part of the multinational cooperation of the Guardian Force. It is unclear which Zoids he piloted as an imperial soldier, or for how long he used the Dibison prior to the events in the series.
• Thomas' Japanese voice actor, Kentarou Itou, is also the voice actor of Sanders in Zoids: New Century, and Dart in Zoids: Fuzors

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Characters in Zoids media

Anime Characters

Zoids: Chaotic Century (GF indicates a character who debuts in Guardian Force)

Zoids: New Century

Zoids: Fuzors

Zoids: Genesis

Zoids: Wild

Zoids: Wild ZERO

Video Game Characters

Zoids VS series

Zoids Saga series

Zoids: Full Metal Crash

Liger Zero: Mythical Silver Beast

Zoids Infinity series

Canon • Chact Spect • Lance • Zalka Torres

Battle Story Characters